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Pauline Johnson

Beacon
July 11/1895
E. Pauline Johnson guest at Kennedy’s.

Poetry and Humour, rich and racy, were delightfully intermingled at the entertainment given last Thursday night by Miss Pauline Johnson, the celebrated Indian poetess, and Mr. Owen A. Smily, the well-known Canadian humorist. Costumed in the trappings of an Iroquois maiden, Miss Johnson recited several selections from her own poetry in a most entertaining manner. She also gave a recitation or two in the habiliments of civilization. Mr. Smily’s humor kept the audience roaring with laughter, and it was the unanimous verdict that a more entertaining combination than Miss Johnson and Mr. Smily had never visited the town.

Beacon
Jan 24/1901
Miss Johnson, the gifted Indian poetess and journalist, delighted the people of St. Andrews and St. George last week with her entertainments. She gave two performances in St. George and on in St. Andrews (the latter on Thursday night). At each she carried out a very pleasing programme.

Beacon
May 14/1908
Miss Pauline Johnson, the famous Indian poetess and elocutionist, with Mr. Frederick McRaye, the great Canadian impersonator, will appear in Andraeleo hall on Wednesday, May 20. Brief review of performance May 28.

Beacon
May 28/1908
Miss Pauline Johnson, the distinguished Canadian poetess, appeared before a very select and appreciative audience in Andraeleo hall, on Wednesday night last, when she read extracts from her poems. She was costumed in Indian dress and presented a striking appearance on the platform. Walter McRay, the popular impersonator, divided the honors with her in his rendering of selections from Drummond. He has the accent of the habitant, and threw and energy into his recitations that made them very interesting.

Beacon
March 13/1913
Pauline Johnson dies in Vancouver. Obit

Beacon
Feb 4/1915
St. Andrews in Poetry
by A. Wylie Mahon
A little volume of poems, “Rosemary and Rue,” by Mrs. Estelle Hollister Wilson, of Montreal, has just been published, which reveals the ender hold which St. Andrews has upon those who summer there. Mrs. and Mrs. J. T. Wilson were amongst the fist guests o register at the Algonquin when the hotel was opened more than twenty years ago. many sad breaks have been made in the charmed circle which fellowshipped there in those happy days when mind an heart meant more than money. Amongst the number who have crossed the bar is Mr. Wilson, who was greatly beloved by those who knew him best. Since Mr. Wilson’s death Mrs. Wilson has continued to make the Algonquin her summer home, attracted thither by her love for St. Andrews and by the sweet memories of the happy summers pent there before the sad break in the tenderest of all earth’s ties. Readers of the Beacon have long since learned to look, as the summer season drew to an end, for a sweet little poem, with tender touches of sadness in it, from the pen of “E. H. W.” which being interpreted meant Estelle Hollister Wilson. In “Rosemary and Rue” we meet again with some of these beautiful lyrics. The little poem, “SA by the Sea” is full of local color, and is worthy of a place beside Pauline Johnson’s poem on the same attractive subject. (Pauline Johnson wrote a poem about St. Andrews!) Poem and others follow.

Pauline Johnson (1861-1913)

From: “Flint and Feather” (1912)

Low Tide at St. Andrews (New Brunswick)
 
THE long red flats stretch open to the sky,
Breathing their moisture on the August air.
The seaweeds cling with flesh-like fingers where
The rocks give shelter that the sands deny ;
And wrapped in all her summer harmonies
St. Andrews sleeps beside her sleeping seas.

 
The far-off shores swim blue and indistinct,
Like half-lost memories of some old dream.
The listless waves that catch each sunny gleam
Are idling up the waterways land-linked,
And, yellowing along the harbour's breast,
The light is leaping shoreward from the west.

 
And naked-footed children, tripping down,
Light with young laughter, daily come at eve
To gather dulse and sea clams and then heave
Their loads, returning laden to the town,
Leaving a strange grey silence when they go,--
The silence of the sands when tides are low.

"Passing Through ... From Town Hall to Opera House"
by Patricia Belier
originally published in
The Officers' Quarterly
v. 11, n. 3, Summer 1995, p. 10-12
Starting in 1901, Pauline Johnson no longer travelled alone, having formed a partnership with fellow-performer Walter McRaye. In his memoir Pauline Johnson and Her Friends (1946), he mentions her many visits to St. Andrews, New Brunswick, where she was the guest of Kate (Mrs. Hayter) Reed and where she composed her poem "Low Tide at St. Andrews." Mr. Reed was a former Indian Commissioner who became Manager-in-Chief of the C.P.R. hotels, including The Algonquin in St. Andrews, which his wife decorated. The Reeds eventually built a delightful home beside the hotel and called it Pansy Patch.